Towards the standard-module approach to disulfide-linked polypeptide nanostructures. I. Methodological prerequisites and mass spectrometric characterization of the test two-loop structure

Does Electron Capture Dissociation Cleave Protein Disulfide Bonds?

Peptide and protein characterization by mass spectrometry (MS) relies on their dissociation in the gas phase into specific fragments whose mass values can be aligned as 'mass ladders' to provide sequence information and to localize possible post-translational modifications. The most common dissociation method involves slow heating of even-electron (M+nH) ⁿ⁺ ions from electrospray ionization by energetic collisions with inert gas, and cleavage of amide backbone bonds. More recently, dissociation methods based on electron capture or transfer were found to provide far more extensive sequence coverage through unselective cleavage of backbone N-Cα bonds. As another important feature of electron capture dissociation (ECD) and electron transfer dissociation (ETD), their unique unimolecular radical ion chemistry generally preserves labile posttranslational modifications such as glycosylation and phosphorylation. Moreover, it was postulated that disulfide bond cleavage is preferred over backbone cleavage, and that capture of a single electron can break both a backbone and a disulfide bond, or even two disulfide bonds between two peptide chains. However, the proposal of preferential disulfide bond cleavage in ECD or ETD has recently been debated. The experimental data presented here reveal that the mechanism of protein disulfide bond cleavage is much more intricate than previously anticipated.

Electron capture dissociation of peptide hormone changes upon opening of the tocin ring and complexation with transition metal cations

Electron capture dissociation (ECD) is an analytical technique in mass spectrometry (MS) that allows detailed structural study of biomolecules to gain insight in their function. In this work the ECD behavior of two peptide hormones oxytocin (OT1) and vasopressin (VP1) was studied. The results of OT1 and VP1 were compared to structural analogues OT2 and VP2, which have similar amino acid sequences but lack the tocin ring. The ECD results showed that both the fragment type (c/z versus b/y) and the cleavage sites (ring versus tail) changed upon opening of the tocin ring. All four peptides were complexed with three different transition metal cations (Zn(2+), Ni(2+) and Cu(2+)) and the ECD results were compared to those obtained from the doubly protonated species. The use of various metal ions yielded different cleavages sites within the same peptide. This can be an effect of the metal ion itself, or a consequence of a change in conformation as was suggested earlier. In addition, the type of fragment ion varied for each metal-complexed peptide, which is in agreement with previous observations.

Does double electron capture lead to the formation of biradicals? An ECD-SORI-CID study on lacticin 481

We studied lacticin 481, a small lantibiotic with three lanthionine bridges, by electron capture dissociation (ECD) in a Fourier transform ion cyclotron resonance (FTICR) mass spectrometer. Following electron capture, very little fragmentation was observed, but species formed by nondissociative single and multiple electron capture were abundant. Ions formed by double electron capture were subjected to sustained off resonance irradiation collision induced dissociation (SORI-CID) to determine whether stable biradicals were formed. In the SORI-CID spectra of the ions formed by double electron capture, some, but minor, H* radical loss was observed, which was not observed at all for regularly protonated ions. A small part of the ions formed by double electron capture are thus long-lived biradicals. Apart from the observed H* loss, the SORI-CID spectra of ions that captured two electrons was similar to that of regularly protonated ions and quite different from the SORI-CID spectra of radical ions formed by single electron capture. This implies that recombination of the two radical sites is the dominant process in biradical lacticin 481 ions, at least on the time scale of our SORI-CID experiments.

Electron-capture dissociation tandem mass spectrometry

Electron capture dissociation (ECD) is a new fragmentation technique used in Fourier transform ion cyclotron resonance mass spectrometry and is complementary to traditional tandem mass spectrometry techniques. Disulfide bonds, normally stable to vibrational excitation, are preferentially cleaved in ECD. Fragmentation is fast and specific and labile post-translational modifications and non-covalent bonds often remain intact after backbone bond dissociation. ECD provides more extensive sequence coverage in polypeptides, and at higher electron energies even isoleucine and leucine are distinguishable. In biotechnology, the main area of ECD application is expected to be the top-down verification of DNA-predicted protein sequences, de novo sequencing, disulfide bond analysis and the combined top-down/bottom-up analysis of post-translational modifications.